Fr. John's Christmas Note 2006

DECEMBER 2006

And what a year it’s been. I write this from New York City - Manhattan - the Big Apple - the place of my birth and where I worked professionally as an actor and the center of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus. (When I first was applying to the Jesuits, the Vocation Director said at one point, “You know, since you live in Princeton, technically you are in the Maryland Province, and you could apply to join that Province. You’re free to apply anywhere, but I wanted you to know you had that choice.” I looked at him, and said, “But New York is the center of the universe.” He said, “OK, you should apply here.”)

Back in New York. This note assumes you have read the missive (which is also found here) “The Priest Has Left the Building” which explores my leaving Kwajalein. If you read last year’s missive, you were probably surprised I was leaving. So was I. It was a very busy, very good year - and I’m going to zip through some of the high points of it right now.

HEALTH
I have crossed the invisible divide - I’m 60 years old as of December 13th - and so (like so many “old” men) I find myself talking about my health. Aches and pains. Bodily functions.

As the last massive missive for last Christmas ended, our hero (that would be me) was still suffering from an unnecessary appendectomy. They had taken out my appendix because of the pain in my gut, only to find out that the poor little guy was perfectly healthy. Actually, that didn’t upset me a lot, since it’s nice to have that essentially useless appendage out of the way. (They tell the story of Eisenhower as a young officer, saying that he thought he’d have his appendix removed. Someone asked him if it had been bothering him, and he replied, “No, but it might rear up and put me out of action some time when it was really important.” The ultimate in planning ahead.)

What upset me was the pain. Not only that it continued but that it continued to grow worse. And the doctor didn’t seem to be terribly interested. Maybe he was embarrassed that the appendix had proved healthy, but there seemed to be no curiosity about what had caused the original pain, and no curiosity about what was causing the ongoing pain and even less interest in trying to stop it. I kept going back and each time I was told, “Let’s give it a little longer.” Finally, after a month, I exploded, slammed doors, raised my voice - and changed doctors. (One of the hospital staff said to me, once the decision had been made to send me to Honolulu - hereafter referred to as Hono - that several people on the staff couldn’t understand why I had waited so long. Sigh.)

So off I went to Honolulu, where a nice surgeon took about ten seconds to diagnose (in his words) “a really big hernia.” His question to me was how in the world they could have missed this where I was. For which I had no answer. So they cut me open (although I missed an opening in the surgical rotation by about a half an hour and so had to wait four or five days before the job could be done) and they put in one of those net things to hold everything in place. It’s a great system - I came from the hotel by cab early in the morning, they checked me in, tucked me into a bed in an area where lots of people were being prepped for out surgery. I had my own little tv set to keep me company (and I was even able to tune it to the Golf Channel) - heated sheets (now THERE is a nice touch) and I dozed off. When I awoke, I was in another little cubicle - they brought me coffee and toast - called me a cab - I was back in the hotel by 2 pm, and feeling much better than I thought I would. Of course I was doped to the gills, hence the lack of pain and sense of general well-being. The hotel staff had been alerted, so if I needed anything they were ready, and I had laid in a supply of food and drink in the little fridge in my room. This was all good.

Now the next morning was a little tough - there was a lot more pain on the day after than on the day of. It took me a full 30 minutes to get the determination and sheer will power to complete the task of actually sitting up. Sitting up was tough. But once up, I could (with concentration and focusing really hard) move a little - and each day got a little better. It was frustrating, being in Hono without being to see anything or do anything. I had had a nice tour of the island before the surgery - a friend of a friend took me on a tour of the island (by car, since walking was painful) and since she is Hawaiian, I got to see some great things. One of the parishioners from Kwaj was passing through, and he took me shopping and we had a fun lunch - and I managed to get to two Rotary meetings - so the time before wasn’t a total waste, nor the time after. But each adventure prior to the surgery took its toll (I was in a fair amount of pain at that point) and it was NOT your typical trip to Hono, and since the company had very tight limits on what they would pay for, I couldn’t do very much. (Not being able to walk and not being able to pay for a cab cuts down on the options a WHOLE lot.)

When I got back to Kwaj, I was under doctor’s orders not to walk more than block at a stretch, not to even try riding a bike for a number of weeks - how does one get to and from work? I had permission to get a golf cart - but there were not any available - or so I was told. So I walked. I had bought myself a little folding stool in Hono which I carried about, so I could sit down when I needed to. And I walked slowly. But there was no choice. Visitors to the island could get carts so they didn’t have to walk around or ride bikes to which they were unaccustomed. VIP’s had vehicles - but apparently there is no provision for employees who need temporary help in order to do their work. (Grumble, fratsis, snort.)

Bit by bit it improved, and while I still get an occasional twinge in that area, the doctor I saw in New York did not seem unduly concerned. As long as we’re talking about health things, that same doctor did a whole physical on yours truly, and pronounced me fit and healthy “with the blood pressure of a 15-year old.” (I wish I had some of the other things of a 15 year old.) The dentist has pronounced my teeth fit - so barring some surprising news from the podiatrist or the eye doctor, I enter into my 61st year with the body in good shape.

EVENTS AND ADVENTURES
OK - now that we’ve taken care of the physical stuff, what about other things? Well, January, for all the pain I was in, was a busy month. I was still going up to Roi Namur for Mass, and for those who like to read significance into events, it was in January that one whole side of the small chapel collapsed.. Fell right down. Fortunately no one was around, so there were no injuries, just mess. Bless the workmen - they not only came in quickly to fix and clean, they even put the Stations of the Cross back together. Glued broken pieces, put something in the cracks and painted over, so you were hard-pressed to tell where the damage had taken place.

Unfortunately, it’s indicative of the general state of things in many places on Kwaj. Buildings are decaying, in some cases downright dangerous. There is one office where (I speak nothing but the truth here) they literally wear helmets at their desks, because of concrete pieces falling from the ceiling. The trailer where I lived was built in 1962. Now in ’62 they built good trailers, so the thing is holding together. But I doubt they thought the useful life of this thing was going to be almost 45 years. And in a climate where a bicycle will rust out in less than two years, because of the salt land humidity.

One wonderful woman on Kwaj gave me a Christmas present - a day of cleaning. (Isn’t that a much nicer gift than a fruit basket?) I invoked it on the day the Christmas tree came down and so not only did my trailer get a WONDERFUL cleaning, there were no residual pine needle popping out from unexpected places. (Says something about my own skills as a housekeeper that when I left my hard housing residence in October to move into the trailer, and we did the final clean out of the place, after the furniture and everything else was gone, there were handfuls of pine needles in the final trash sweep.) Later in January I went to Majuro for a couple of days of training, with other Jesuits from the Marshalls, and a couple of our men from New York who came out. It was nice to be with other Jesuits, if even only for a couple of days. The pastor of the church in Majuro was ordained the same time I was, although when I came for this visit, he was on Pohnpei for another meeting. Ain’t it always the way?

And then to Hono for the surgery. Back to Kwaj for recuperation. When I got off the plane, a friend came by with a truck and drove me back to the trailer with my suitcase. On the way (foreshadowing of things to come?) he said the latest rumor going around Kwaj (Kwaj exists on rumors) was that KRS was going to do away with the chaplains, had I heard anything about it? I dismissed it as silliness, because the Army requires chaplains. Hmmm...I wonder.

February brought a visit by Ken Hezel, the Regional Superior of the Jesuits and the First Communion candidates receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time (confession for your older hands). There was a great Mardi Gras party (at which I was crowned King of Kwajalein - picture available somewhere on this site) and the parish had a terrific second year of Death By Chocolate, a combination Mardi Gras and dessert party at the Country Club, for kids and families as well as single folk.

In March I had a formal evaluation of my work as chaplain - rave reviews, high marks, compliments up and down the line. (I have a copy if you’d like to see it. Darn thing practically glows in the dark, for all the good it did me. I don’t mean to keep harping on this being sent away business, but it does rather frustrate when the powers that be give you a glowing evaluation and then send you away for reasons they won’t discuss. Grumble.) Lent started, and I made a guest appearance in the high school production of Taming of the Shrew (I played a priest - let’s hear it for type casting). Fran Hezel (cousin of the Ken Hezel mentioned before, and one of the great experts on Micronesia) came out to do a Day of Recollection for the Parish, a workshop with kids in the high school, and two talks for the general population.

As I reviewed events of the year, I kept coming across these little foreshadowing moments. On April 1st, I was late coming into the office, and I told the secretary and Rick Funk, the Protestant Chaplain, that the reason I was late was because I had been over at HR handing in my 90-day notice (ie resignation) and filling out the paperwork. Yup, I said, I wrote down my name and my date of birth, today’s date, April 1st - and I paused. It was such a successful April Fool’s I sent it out to a bunch of friends as an e-mail. (I wonder if that started to give people ideas?) I was supposed to go to Pohnpei for a gathering of Jesuits but I had sent my passport off to get new pages in it, and it did not get back in time. In fact, it arrived on Kwaj the day I would have returned.

Holy Week is always a busy time. On the day after Palm Sunday we had the Way of the Cross through the community, carrying a large cross to a number of places around the island, At each we would stop, read a little Scripture for reflection and pray. On that same day, I had confessions, and then I went and joined a group who were bringing presents and food to a small community on Carlson, about a 50 minute boat ride from Kwaj. On Wednesday there was a Town Hall meeting. Can you imagine scheduling a gathering like that in the middle of Holy Week? Sigh.

Holy Thursday last year was also the first night of Passover, so we combined the Holy Thursday ritual with a traditional Jewish Seder meal. The first part of the ceremony was the Seder, with the prayers and readings about the meaning of Passover. That, along with a Gospel reading, was the Liturgy of the Word. We celebrated that sitting at tables in the large public gathering room at the high school. Then we moved to stand around the altar at the far end of the room. After Mass, those who had made reservations returned to the tables, where we had a meal. At the end of the meal, I re-enacted the washing of the feet, and then, since the New Testament tells us they “went into the night singing psalms”, we carried the Blessed Sacrament in procession along the ocean road, singing hymns. It was a great celebration, very dramatic, and we had about 90 people for the Mass. My years with the Jewish Temple keep coming in handy.

Holy Saturday - the great day of silence of the Easter Triduum - and the powers that be scheduled a Mass casualty exercise. Sigh again. I know, terrorists could very well strike on Holy Saturday as well as any other time. But really and truly, it does rather seem to be a tad inconsiderate for the people who are trying to keep the spirit of this extraordinary weekend. Between the Town Hall meeting and the mass casualty exercise, you’d almost think there was a plot against maintaining a religious spirit of Easter. (Last year I managed to get a party for kids changed from Good Friday afternoon. )

May is always a busy month on Kwaj, because we have high school graduation and the parties that surround that, and many people are preparing to leave. Of course, lately people seem to be leaving in a fairly constant stream throughout the year, but in May the pace picks up, both the permanent leavings and those who go away for the summer. We also celebrated First Communion in the parish, and Mother’s Day, with the traditional May crowning (some traditions never die).

One of the aspects of the Kwaj community was the way in which we could sometimes incorporate bits of the Marshallese community around us into our liturgies. For First Communion, for instance, Marshallese women came in the day before and created spectacular palm frond weavings for the front of the church. The young people were in matching outfits, native style, flower leis for the priest and altar servers. All quite beautiful. Palm Sunday is another occasion when the palm weavers really shine, and they can make the most extraordinary palm weavings out of a single palm, with the individual fronds split and woven together in a dazzling display of imagination and dexterity.

In May I gave a thank you dinner party for the CCD teachers, and I sang a concert up on Roi. Last December, Neil Dye and I were supposed to repeat Father John’s Birthday Bash for the Roi residents, and at the last minute, because of a mission, Neil couldn’t go. I did a solo concert up there anyway, but we had promised them something special, so in May, Neil and I and Jane Christy, with Win Keller, Jr on the piano did “Beauty and the Beasts.” Great fun. We did everything from opera to Broadway (very broad) to folk songs and lots of jokes and stories. For the terminally curious, there is a DVD of the evening - bad photography but you get a sense of what you missed. (For that matter, there are disks for three of the four concerts I gave while I was out on Kwaj. I’m not distributing them but if we’re ever together I can show them. I might leave the room and go read, but they do exist. For the wonderment and edification of future generations.)

Summer is quiet on Kwaj, because so many people are away. So, at the time when the most people are off island, the company decided to have a survey, to find out what the workers really thought about some key issues. On the face of it, this sounds like a good idea, in a place where morale is in the toilet. But not only was this scheduled for the period of fewest people around, when the forms were sent to each member of the community, we discovered that the forms were numbered. Now THAT is a good way to discourage anyone from responding. When the issue was raised, the response from the company was that there were no plans to track individual answers, but rather that they were trying to prevent people from stuffing the boxes. In other words, they didn’t trust the employees. Of course, the employees don’t trust them either, so I guess that’s fair. Most places, people who run a survey are delighted with small responses. If someone is willing to go to the trouble to make extra copies and stuff the boxes, I think that says something. Some did answer, and some really took time and wrote pages of supplemental material. No one really believes that it will have an effect on anything, quite honestly.

The other thing that happened during the summer was that two of my god children came to visit. They had each just graduated from college - they are brother and sister but Rob had taken a detour for a while, and so he and his sister ended up finishing at the same time. She was at Cornell, did a double major, Magna cum laude, and he was at Johnson & Wales. For those of you who do not know these things, J&W is perhaps THE best school for catering and food service management there is - hot stuff.

So this was my graduation present to them. I have not seen much of them growing up (I have been away most of the time) so I thought before they disappeared into careers, I’d at least have a chance to get to know them a little. We did the full range of Kwaj things - boating and fishing and they each got their Open Water Diving certification. Several people fell in love with Tory and Rob cooked - boy did Rob cook. One of my good friends on Kwaj is, among other things, a personal chef. (That’s a job - he had done that as a career for a number of years, and he’s really good.) And Rob held his own quite handily when the two of them cooked together for a St Ignatius Day dinner and then for the regular gathering of the Padre’s Pub.

(Padre’s Pub? This was a weekly coming together of odd folks that I had inherited. It was started by a great guy in the fire department, Mike Gabany - the company got rid of him because he would not certify things as safe that manifestly weren’t. When he left, a couple of others hosted the gathering for a while, and then I took it over and named it the Padre’s Pub. Anyone was welcome - people would bring food to cook and share, we fired up the grill, and we never knew from week to week how many might show up. One week we’d have eight, the next week 23/ It was great fun, and there was always more food than people. Folks enjoyed it because they got to meet people they would not otherwise cross paths with, and great friendships were formed across departments and ages and backgrounds. Sometimes people brought instruments and there was music - sometimes not. One never knew.

As I was leaving Bob Hamel offered to take it over, and so one night we had a ceremonial passing of the torch. .A real torch, of course. We had it light at my place, and about the middle of the evening, complete with singing and a recording of the Olympic anthem, we all marched the torch from my trailer down to the new location, and ceremoniously passed the torch, had a drink, made short speeches and then went back to finish off the desserts. The tradition continues.)

So Rob and Tory were out for about two weeks, and that made the summer much more interesting. Tory went back to start law school (anyone looking for a summer law intern, I’ve got a really great prospect for you) and Rob went looking for work. Ah, the real world. One entry for the “how small is the world getting department.” When she was visiting, Tory was still looking for a place to live in Austin. During the visit, a very good friend from Nigeria (actually she’s Italian, married to a Nigerian - been there for years and years) called from the US where she was visiting one of her sons who lives in - wait for it - Austin. And she mentioned that she had just bought an apartment, as an investment. I mentioned I had a god daughter who was looking. One thing led to another, and sure enough, Tory is now in Katia’s apartment. I love match-making.

Two other friends, who had visited last year, called about this time and said they wanted to come back. Now they’re based in the UK, so this is not an idle trip for them - London to NY (or some intermediate US city) to Honolulu to Kwaj. Except that, being creative people, they decided this time to come the other way. So they went to Japan first, then Guam, then Kwaj.

Now in between when I said come ahead and when they arrived, I had learned about the not having my contract renewed thing. So they got to be around for farewell parties and the last night of the pub and things like that. Mark is a great diver, and in fact, as it worked out, my last dive on Kwaj was with him. And a small shark who decided that we were most interesting and stayed with us for pretty much the whole dive. He wasn’t big enough to be bothersome, he was just cute and inquisitive.

Mark and Kemi are individually entries on my list of amazing characters I know - and together, their impact is just that much greater. Last time they came, by the end of the first week they knew people I hadn’t met, and complete strangers were coming up to me to talk about Mark and Kemi. (She is the daughter of a dear friend in Nigeria, who is herself and author, and you should betake yourself immediately to Amazon.com and look at Splendid, which is her first book (of about 8) and arguably her best. He is an engineer, twelve years in the Royal Navy - I was duly scolded for having said he was in the British Navy. Apparently there is no such thing as the British Navy, so he couldn’t very well have been in it. Oops.) This time people were coming up to ask when they were coming, where they were staying, and they got invited to all sorts of parties and events I wasn’t invited to. But they took me anyway. Good friends to have, ones who get you to parties.

Other highlights of the year? Well, an idea that had been talked about off and on for several years finally came to pass - the taxi program. Bicycles are the primary mode of transportation on Kwaj, and bikes are often being “borrowed” by people who don’t have them right handy. Usually the borrower is Marshallese, but not always. As an attempt to help that situation, the chapel got ahold of a bunch of bikes (when I left we were up to 57) that were painted yellow, with “Taxi” stenciled onto the center bar. The idea is that if you see a Taxi bike anywhere you can take it and use it. You can’t lock a taxi bike or take it home and hide it. We also have several bikes at the chapel that we reserve for visitors and people coming down from Roi.

The other thing that was a first was the Chaplain’s Cup Golf Tournament, and that one was my idea. We raised money to underwrite the cost of printing Bibles in Marshallese, and we had a full house. Four man scramble (unfortunate term, since we also had women in the groups) best ball format - and great fun. A friend of mine had found a golf ball imbedded in a large piece of coral - the coral had grown up around it - and that became our trophy. Rick Fun, the Protestant chaplain, made a base for it, and got a brass plaque which we had inscribed. We begged prizes from different groups around the island and everyone had fun. Lunch was included - the chaplains neither won nor did we come in last.

The only other really big thing was, of course, packing and moving. Moving on a regular basis is probably a good thing, because it does force you to take stock of what is important and necessary and to get rid of the things that don’t meet that criteria. (And, let’s be honest, that’s really most of it.) One Jesuit recently said that the secret to not being bothered by moving or worrying about losing a lot of stuff is not to have a lot of stuff to begin with. This is a level I have not reached. I have some good friends who offered to store my bits and pieces until we know what the next assignment is going to be. For the record, something like 60 boxes of bits and pieces, depending on how many actually arrive at the end of the moving process.

Although I am getting better at having fewer bits and pieces. And consolidating. So many of us have moved from records to tapes to CD’s and now many of the cd’s have been copied onto the computer and into a little tiny mp3 player. I discovered recently that I could buy a CD (well, two CD’s) on which are all the scores of all the Verdi operas. And another with all the Wagner operas. And another with all the Schubert songs. ALL the Schubert songs - that’s a lot of songs. And another for Puccini, and another with tenor songs and arias - about 300 of them. So instead of two or three shelves of very heavy books, one can have five CD’s, from which one print individual songs or arias as needed. This is good. And as I get smarter I will perhaps even get around to scanning other books of music and pieces of paper and turning all my boxes (well, some of the boxes) into digital formats.

Cast of Characters
I think I should start to try to bring this wandering to a close. But I cannot wander off without a few words about other people. My sister, to start with. If you know her, then you’ll want to know how she’s doing. (If you don’t know her, you are missing one of life’s great experiences. Of the two of us, she is far and away the most extraordinary. Not as flashy as her older brother, perhaps, but multi-talented, much smarter and with a capacity to get to know and care for people that continually leaves me breathless.)

She’s doing well. Her body continues to give her troubles - they put in a piece to help her ankle but her body rejected it, so they had to take it out, and they’re try again in a little bit. She’s going in right after Christmas for an evaluation to see about killing some nerves to ease pain around her neck. And a half a dozen other things I can’t keep track of. But in between doctors and hospitals and what-nots, she travels to see cousins and friends, and belongs to a group that does trips all around the world. She was supposed to go to Egypt in January, and I think there was another trip she has to miss. She is definitely going on the safari trip in September, to South Africa and Kenya - and who knows where else she might turn up. (If you see her, say hello for me.)

And my rambling on about Kwaj has really done nothing to give you a sense of the amazing cast of unusual and rich characters that have assembled there. One of the gifts of Kwajalein is the extraordinary level of intelligence of the average person, the varied backgrounds from which they come, the breath-taking imagination and creativity they bring with them, and sense of goodness and dedication that is inspiring. It is really and truly a little bit like living in a Norman Rockwell painting in the best possible sense of that overused phrase. (And the company does everything it can do kill all those good feelings and drive away those good people. I know, I’m kvetching again. - but it’s the same kind of disbelief I felt when I read about the guy smashing the Pieta or slashing the Mona Lisa. Mindless destruction.)

I was thinking about talking about some of them but I realized this would suddenly become a twenty or thirty page missive - and I would all unintentionally leave someone out, and feelings would be hurt - so maybe (uncharacteristically) shutting up is the best route.

There is or will be shortly a companion reflection at this very blog site on coming back to the US and spending time in New York. In fact, I am finishing this up while on a plane to Arizona, to meet with some Rotarians I have been working with online for a year, and have never met in person, and some other friends with whom I am going to celebrate my coming of age. The Rotary thing is really quite fascinating. I am a third-generation Rotarian. My grandfather was a Rotarian, and at one point, my father was the youngest Rotarian in the US. I have belonged to clubs in the US and in Nigeria and it’s a great organization. I am the charter member for Nigeria of a group called RTI - Rotarians on the Internet, one of the first Rotary group to seriously try to make use of this new technology.

When I went to Kwaj, I figured my Rotary time was again suspended, since the nearest Rotary club was a couple of thousand miles away. But Rotary International has sanctioned, on an experimental basis, the operation of a few eclubs around the world, groups based not on geographic association but rather on association through the internet. So I joined the Rotary Eclub of Southwestern US (Recswusa for short). We have members in South Africa, Italy, our incoming President is in Japan, and members in six or seven states in the US. (We used to have a member in the Marshall Islands - but you know that story.) We have a truly global perspective when we discuss issues, and the resources we can bring to bear for a project or a problem are most impressive The founding core group is based in Arizona, and so I’m really excited about meeting folks. I am the current Sgt at Arms for the club, and put together the first club directory. (Anyone want to give me a birthday present can contribute to help me gain another level in my Paul Harris Fellow - signifies a contribution to the Rotary Foundation. I became a Paul Harris Fellow when I was in Nigeria, and for my 60th thought it would be nice to move up one level. It’s only a thousand dollars, and I have a couple of gifties already. End of pitch.)

One of the great things about Rotary is that wherever you go, you can attend the meeting of any Rotary club anywhere. In fact, your obligation as a Rotarian is to attend one meeting a week, if not your own club than some other. As an eclub, attending a meeting is much easier because the meeting is on line and you simply sign in and read the material. Maintaining the level of fellowship that is the Rotary ideal is a challenge in our circumstance, and I am also chairman of the fellowship committee, so it’s a problem I continue to wrestle with.

God is full of surprises. When I left Nigeria I was all prepared for one thing, and it quickly turned into something else - which then turned into something I didn’t expect. When I first suggested going to Kwajalein, I had thought it would be a quiet semi-retirement posting. While it was not Lagos (among other things, no cars and no one shooting at you) it was also a lot of work. People with real needs. Lots of time spent with people both Catholic and not. And just as I was thinking I was starting to get the hang of that, boom, here we go again. This is good. I used to nag the people on Kwaj, find God in all things. (It’s a Jesuit mantra.) And while not all things may COME from God, God is definitely in there somewhere, and it’s not His fault if we’re not always smart enough to figure out where.

I‘m actually pretty much at peace with the changes and the future. (Although looking at the number of times I’ve referred to it, maybe I still have a little settling to deal with, eh?) But I am looking forward to whatever comes next.

I hope your Christmas season is filled with wonder and joy and wonderful people you can hug, who will hug back. (A very dear friend read somewhere that you should never be the first one to let go of a hug. She made the mistake of telling me, and we engaged in some truly mammoth hugging sessions. People would come and go and we’d just hang on - little contest thing going on. Well, if you’re going to have a contest, at least with this one, both people win. And she is a wonderful hugger.) May the joy of the Hanukkah lights illumine all your days, and the richness of the Kwanza celebration fill your cups and plates and hearts. (Covered everybody?)

As I write this, the plan still is that I will be at 83rd Street until at least the end of the year, maybe even a little longer. Mail can always be sent c/o 39 E 83rd, although for the moment I am in residence at 53. Same zip code. I don’t want to put the phone numbers on this very public place, but they’ll be good until I leave - and if you send me an email the reply has all the numbers. As soon as I know anything definite, I’ll put the news here on the blog site. (Ain’t technology wonderful?)

Hugs and love and prayers and stuff like that.

And thus endeth Father John’s Christmas Letter for 2006.